Leonard David's INSIDE OUTER SPACE

Image credit: Firefly Aerospace

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado – Lessons learned and on-the-spot surprises from the first fully successful commercial lunar lander mission bolsters the chances of long-term robotic and human operations on the moon.

The Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost Mission 1 safely touched down March 2 within the targeted Mare Crisium landing zone.

Blue Ghost completed more than 14 days of surface operations during 346 hours of daylight, stretching its lifetime for a little over 5 hours into the super-chilly lunar night.

Image credit: Firefly Aerospace

For more details, go to my new Space.com story — ‘We learned so much that we didn’t know’: Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost moon lander mission was full of surprises” – at:

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/private-spaceflight/we-learned-so-much-that-we-didnt-know-firefly-aerospaces-blue-ghost-moon-lander-mission-was-full-of-surprises

Image credit: Firefly Aerospace/Inside Outer Space screengrab